


Wheels Go Round and Round

by sweetiejelly



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/560234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetiejelly/pseuds/sweetiejelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It wasn’t the quietest of reunions. </i>
</p><p>Inspired by the 'fair/amusement park ride' prompt on my <a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/">cottoncandy_bingo</a> card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wheels Go Round and Round

**Author's Note:**

> Written belatedly for dazzling_icer's birthday. Holly, happy, happy (belated) birthday! I remember you loving amusement park rides, so thought of you with this prompt and wanted to write something for you along these lines. Hope this is okay and hope you had a great birthday and have a great year ahead! <3
> 
> Cross-posted to [LJ](http://sweetiejelly.livejournal.com/180550.html).

The air feels thinner up here and keeps rushing out and out and out, never in. And then they reach the top and time seems to stop.

Up here he can see people rushing by below like colorful ants trailing this way and that. He can see the treetops of the park nearby. It’s the flag of autumn (if seasons have flags) – thatches of red and yellow and browns, stubborn, small sprinkles of greens.

If he looks straight ahead, he can see the sky like blue linen, stretching calm for miles. It feels incongruent with the edge of danger in this moment. It feels like the whole of last year.

Last year Noah spent the year single, in L.A., going out with people but never _going out_ with anyone. New friends he made a few. Old friends he entertained a few, some even often. Like Ameera, who turned out to be a fountain of information about the city – where to go for food, for music, for art, for beer. Noah felt like the foreigner next to her.

To be honest, Noah felt like the foreigner next to anyone. It was a familiar feeling. He was always new everywhere. L.A. was no different. (Except well, now he knew sharply, almost physically, what it was like to move with a Luke-shaped hole cradled constantly between his arms.)

L.A. was blue and Noah felt suspended. Like someone threw him up in an arc and he was just waiting to touch ground. He worked. He came home. He ate. He worked. He slept. He did laundry. He worked. Somewhere beyond any given moment was everything – a finished film, a returned boyfriend, maybe a puppy, definitely a family.

Noah had everything to look forward to.

Like right now. Right now Noah is hanging onto the steel bars attached to the bucket seat, his knuckles poking out white like spokes in a wheel. O. M. G. H. O. L. Y. W. O. W.

It’s not that he’s scared. No. He’s more exhilarated than anything, because there’s movement. And really, it’s not a fall if it’s a rush.

It felt like a rush adopting his puppy, Luciano. Quite by accident, too, from the side of a road on the way home one night. A family was moving east and their dog had just had a litter. And the runt of the litter – well, he was as good as calling out to Noah, little paws swiping at the air between them. Noah stopped.

And because he stopped, his life started up in a frenzy. Lucianos are probably all born this way, all noise and motion, all touch and tongue. It served him right for naming the puppy that, on impulse. Day two of their co-existence and Noah lost a shoe strap. Which was as good as losing a shoe (well, two) since he didn’t know how to fix a strap punctured with puppy love. (He didn’t know how to fix his life either, punctured with Luciano love.)

Luke came down to L.A. a month later and brought Ethan. It wasn’t the quietest of reunions. Squeals erupted, human and canine. Ethan loved Little Luke (his name for the puppy), and the feeling was mutual, if the amount of licking was anything to go by.

Noah was somewhat alarmed (though mostly warmed) to find three more bodies than he was used to sharing his bed. It took everyone a long time to fall asleep. The middle quieted down first – Ethan wrapped like a burrito around Little Luke – and then Luke and Noah at the edges tried not to fall off the bed, off of anything.

Naturally, Noah woke up the next morning on the floor. But what made it slightly better was Luke’s amused face staring at him. “The other Luke did it.”

Noah’s mouth twitched a little (and not at all with his permission).

Luke (and little Luke and Ethan too) peered down at him, all with big blown puppy eyes. Noah sighed and then laughed when Luke (Little) licked him. This was how it was going to be. And Noah was surprisingly okay with that.

“I need a bigger bed,” he might have muttered. And he did not at all catch Luke’s quick, sly smile in response.

Luke helped him up and dragged him off to the kitchen. “Hey,” his voice dipped low, so Ethan wouldn’t hear (not that Ethan had eyes nor ears for them at the moment). “I was going to come visit anyway, but Ethan heard barking over dad’s phone and insisted on coming with. It’s,” he toyed with the edges of Noah’s sleeves, “okay, right?”

Noah blinked at the mess of blond hair falling over the brilliance of the hazel eyes, the warmth of Luke cradled in the space made just for him. “Um, are you kidding? It’s more than okay. I’ve missed him.” _And you._

“He missed you, too,” Luke dimpled, too pretty for his own good in a shaft of morning light. “Got any coffee?”

Luke and Ethan stayed just for the weekend, but not before Ethan extracted a pinky promise from Noah to come up to Oakdale for Thanksgiving and also for Christmas. “You’ll bring Little Luke.” It wasn’t quite a question.

Noah said yes anyway.

Yeses with Snyders are a bit of a slippery slope. You say it once. You’ll be saying it a thousand times. 

Noah didn’t mind.

At Thanksgiving he got to hold Luke’s hand and hear his thanks. Luke was (still) so thankful for Noah and Noah was thankful he wasn’t built to cry at the drop of a hat. (Because boy, it was close.) He settled for a squeeze of Luke’s hand in his.

At Christmas he got to hold Luke’s lips with his. He loved mistletoes and the army of conniving Snyders who placed them here, there, and everywhere.

On New Year’s Eve, Luke came down to visit him in L.A. They watched the fireworks from Noah’s small apartment windows. They counted down to a new year surrounded with Noah’s new friends (and one amused ex-wife).

That night, Noah (along with Luke) found that he didn’t need a bigger bed after all.

It felt like an exhale.

Like now, like looping through the expanse of sky at breakneck speed, turning upside down and then right side up. He looks to his right, to Luke by his side, all wild hair and wild eyes, all screams and laughter and knows that he’s going to be all right. _They_ are going to be all right. They’re in this ride together. 

He breathes in and out, in and out, and holds out his hand for Luke’s to slide into. He squeezes. 

Luke squeezes back. “Where to next?”

From all directions float the scents of treats – funnel cakes and cotton candy, corn on the cob and hot dogs.

“Anywhere,” Noah says. “We have the whole day.”

“We have our whole lives,” Luke counters.

And well, who is Noah to argue with that? He smiles and smiles back.

Behind them the wheels gear up again, nice and slow to start. In a minute they will break into a run and whistle high into the sky.

Luke tugs on Noah’s hand, and together they move through the crowd. After all, they have so much ground still to cover, so many places still to go.


End file.
